The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1887-07-06
AMONG THE MoRMoNS.
The Edmunds-Tucker Act Not Meeting
With Great Success.

With Great Success.
Especial Correspondence of the sentinell
SALT LAKE City, Utah, July 1.-The
anti polygamy legislation of last March,
generally known as the Edmunds-Tucker
act, has been tried and found to be fail
ure. Not total failure, but it has failed
to accomplish what the people expected,
viz: Acknowledgement of the Mormons and
the placing of the Territory under anti
Mormon control, one of the results of which
would be the election of an anti-Mormol
Legislature which would pass some bill
sgainst the Mormons more stringent than
Congress is willing to enact
1t was the impression of good many
here, Just after the passage of the act Of
March 3, that the Mormons would not take
the oath prescribed as a condition pre-
cedent to the right of suffrage. The prin-
cipsl reason for such belief was that they
would not care TO advertise themselves to
the world as moral perjurers, and that the
church authorities would be too wise
to council their people to perjure
themselves; that when they did this the
bulk of their followers would begin to get
their eyes open and a general apostasy
would result. But it seems as though the
Mormon leaders think Ii better to perjure
themselves and advise their flock to do so
rather than lose political control.
To show how a great many Mormons felt
about taking the oath, before they
got their orders from the head of
the church, and bow the mass of
the MormoDs blindly follow the leaders
like flock Of sheep, will say that when
apumber of intelligent Mormons were in
terviewed by the Sentinel correspondent, as
to their intentions with regard to the oath,
they declared that they could not con.
scientiously take 1t, and that they would
not. But after a little while, when the
Mormon papers came out and insisted that
Mormons need have no conscientious
scruples against taking it, these same men
came up and took the dose like little men.
Now, when the anti-Mormons here
found that the law, as it stands, would be
Intellectual, they tried to induce the regis
tration officers to catechlse the Mormons,
under oath. when they offered themselves
for registration, as to their future inten-
tions, etc., which would result in their ex-
clusion from registration and voting. Bat
the Utah Commission, who have control Of
the registration and elections, informed the
registrars that ''an inquisitorial catechism
OF metaphysical character was, in their
opinion, not authorized by law"
Finding themselves again 'stumped," a
committee OF the Utah Loyal League,
secret society composed of the anti Nor
mons of Utah, waited on the Utah Com
mission and tried TO induce them to inter
polate into and amplify the oath. But the
commission considered that they were
here simply to execute laws now on the
statute books, and not to constitute them
of Congress, whereuPon the organ of the
the Loyal Leaguers, a vicious Republican
paper this secret Loyal League is COM
posed almost wholly of Republicansl sud
denly discovered that the commission had
no control over the registration officers
anyhow So they proceeded to improvise
an oath of their own, and sent them around
to the different registration officers
throughout the territory, thus SET.
ting themselves up in in au
thority over the heads of the commits
sion. But the Utah Commissioners were
of the opinion that, although they might
not have the power to instruct the regis
tration officers as TO their duty, they did
have power enough to remove them for not
doing their duty, and they did remove sew.
eral for Illegally obstructing registration"
which had wholesome effect on the.oth.
ers
Now. the statistics and reports on fiIs-in
the Office Of the commissioners show that,
had the oath OF the Loyal League been adj
ministered, the result would have been the
Acknowledgement of as many, If not more,
of the anti-Mormons than the Mormons.
There Is o clause In the oath which makes
man promise not to hereafter com NIT
the crime Of fornication, and q good many
are not prone to put themselves under
such ban as this. One of the county reg
mission to ask ii certain part of the
oath could not be omitted, as the anti
Mormons in Washington County would
not take II, as they claimed ut was q re-
Fiction on their previous moral status"
The truth Is that some of the ra5id anti
Mormons here, in their insane endeavors
to down the Mormons, are willing to dis.
regard Law, common sense and everything
else to accomplish their end. They seek to
tering the law in the manner best calcu-
lated to benefit themselves even where the
legal pathway Is a. plain as turnpike road,